


A thousand miles behind

by dotfic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Episode: s05e04 The End, F/M, Gen, Hurt Dean Winchester, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-17
Updated: 2012-07-17
Packaged: 2017-11-10 04:02:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/461997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was his job to keep them safe, or to save them, whatever had to be destroyed or sacrificed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A thousand miles behind

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Bob Dylan. Written for smilla02's birthday to her prompt, so this is her fault. Thank you to sargraf for the beta.

It was one of their regular patrols, just him and Risa and Cas. The three of them had developed a rhythm, an effective routine without ever having specifically discussed it. Dean nearly always took point, Risa and Cas a short way behind him, spread out until they formed a triangle. Out here in the woods, the sound of their boots crushing the dead leaves, heavy weight of the gun in his hand, the familiarity of Risa and Cas's presence, their breathing behind him, he couldn't shut it all out or forget but he sometimes got close to feeling easy in his own skin. 

The sun was low in the sky, autumn gold light glinting through the trees. It could almost be five years ago. That could be Sam's boot-steps behind him.

Risa was quieter than Cas in the woods, although Cas almost had the same level of skill in moving without a sound--they were both better at it than Dean, if you got down to it. But he was too aware of them for him not to know that Risa had moved up near his shoulder.

"What is it?" he said, voice low.

"Saw something." She jerked her head. "Two o'clock, past that boulder."

Dean gave a hand-signal to Cas, who didn't even bother to nod acknowledgment. He moved fast, practically disappearing against the trees in his army jacket and threadbare jeans as he circled around, pump-action shotgun raised to his shoulder. As Dean nodded at Risa, she started around the other way, while Dean kept walking, making his steps lighter and slower, his gun raised. The ground began to slope and the sound of rushing water greeted him.

The bird-call Risa gave for _nothing here_ and Cas's answering call for the same bounced off the trees as Dean made his way to the creek beneath the boulder. In the distance he spotted an opening in the trees, a field. It was the edge of someone's farm once upon a time--the farmhouse, he knew, was falling down, empty. They'd cleared it of Croats months ago, killed the nest of them clean and fast. Pieces of old farm equipment lay in the mud at the edge of the creek. They'd been there so long they'd become a part of the scenery, as if they were natural, mud and vines claiming them with only the occasional sharp edge to show what they once were.

He made his way along the creek's edge, choosing his foot-holds sure and careful over the rocks. He smelled mud, a trace of skunk, moldy leaves.

The wind changed and the scent of unwashed bodies hit his nostrils. Dean spun and fired off one shot before two more Croats crashed out of the trees and leapt on him. They were both heavy, bringing Dean down. _Stupid, stupid, stupid_ , he should've caught it sooner. Cas, that sonofabitch, he'd better be willing to shoot Dean in the head and make it quick if he got infected. Dean didn't care how much misery it caused him or if Cas's hand shook, he'd better do it.

Tearing, sharp pain in his leg as he landed made his brain go blank for a second. 

It wasn't because of the Croats, snarling and grabbing at him as his brain cleared. He punched one in the stomach and rammed his elbow into the other one's throat, careful not to draw any blood. A line of pain, so sharp it was hard to breathe, crawled up his leg. There was no time to look and Dean rolled to avoid the Croats. He heard his jeans rip, felt his flesh tear open wider, but he was free of the Croats, rolling into the cold water before there was blast after blast from a shotgun. Lodged against a fallen branch, Dean lay on his back, the water soaking through the layers of his jacket and shirts. He looked up and saw Risa sighting down her shotgun, her face gone hard. 

Dark clouds started to form at the edge of Dean's vision. The pain in his leg was less here in the water. He sank in further. Water spread over his nose, flowed across his mouth. He put out his tongue to taste it, ravenous with thirst, and choked, unable to breathe. Before he could struggle, or push himself up, hands gripped under his shoulders, a strong, fierce grip, almost angry in its intensity, hauling him to his feet so quickly Dean would've cried out from the abrupt renewed pain in his leg if he hadn't been so busy coughing. 

His vision cleared and he saw Cas's face inches from his own, mouth pressed tightly closed and his eyes gone bright with rage, a color that made Dean think of the sky on a ruthlessly cold, clear Midwestern winter day. It could be years ago. 

Risa waded into the creek to join them. She cursed at Dean as she slung his arm across her shoulder, while Cas supported him from the other side. The two of them guided him out of the water. Dean looked around to assess, and saw the bodies of the Croats lying downstream.

He tried to pull free of Risa and Cas's grip, to walk on his own. Risa jabbed him in the stomach with her fist, not too hard, but hard enough to make him stop struggling.

"Asshole," she muttered.

* * *

Chuck was one of the few people left in the world who knew Dean from _before_.

While Dean lay in his cabin with his injured legged propped up on an extra pillow Chuck had scrounged by bartering toilet paper, Chuck paced with a clipboard. The guy was rarely completely still.

"So it's going to take a few days to find the antibiotics for you. But I've got a lead. We can get them."

Folding his arms behind his head, Dean ignored the throbbing in his leg beneath the bandages. They'd made a cut in the leg of his jeans. He only had two pairs left now. "Chuck. Chill. It's only a cut--deep one but I've had worse."

"Okay, but Cas said you fell onto a piece of abandoned farm equipment, and it was rusted. There's tetanus or infection to be considered."

"Chuck!" Dean didn't want to deal with it right now with Chuck's anxiety and worst-case-scenario wisdom. "Go away."

"Yeah, yeah, fine." Halfway to the door, Chuck gave Dean a look, quiet exasperation over pity. Chuck was once Carver Edlund. He knew too many things. There was a set of books in a box in Chuck's cabin. At moments Dean wanted to break in, steal the box, and burn the whole thing. Other times he was glad the words existed.

His goddamned leg hurt like a sonofabitch even with some of Cas's painkillers inside him.

* * *

It wasn't that Dean didn't think Risa was capable of keeping the camp safe and running smoothly in his absence. Risa'd been the CEO of her own business before the virus got unleashed, and she was possibly the best shot in camp after him. Never even held a gun in her former life, and he'd once seen her take out four Croats, barely stirring a hair on her head. 

But lying on his back, listening to the sounds of the camp, he could only stare at the ceiling of his cabin for so long before going completely batshit. He was no use to anyone stuck in his cabin with his leg propped up. Screw it. His leg throbbed and Jesus, it was kind of hot for a cool autumn day. He used the cane Chuck had left for him, got outside onto the porch and down the steps fine on his own. Steve and Annie spotted him as they walked by carrying boxes of supplies.

"Hey, boss, good to see you back on your feet," said Steve, with a military-issue nod. The kid had served in Afghanistan before the virus. Far too eager to get back into the line of fire, to prove himself, but he listened to Dean.

Annie was barely older than Steve, a former grad student who'd been working for her PHD in physics when the Croats took her entire family from her. She tilted her head, watching Dean as she and Steve went by, long dark hair pulled up into a messy knot, and this wasn't the first time Dean felt he wasn't fooling Annie a bit. 

He got as far as the mess tent before the pain in his leg made him stop, unable to take another step. _No no no_ \--his skin was too warm, while his stomach went icy. He couldn't, definitely positively wouldn't, collapse out here where anyone could see him--they were counting on him. It was his job to keep them safe, or to save them, whatever had to be destroyed or sacrificed in the process. 

Dean managed to make his way back to his cabin before he sank down onto the steps, shaking. 

"Don't even say it." Dean raised his hand as Cas walked up to him and stopped.

Cas rolled his eyes heavenward, as if he might be asking his uncaring absent Almighty God-the-father to grant him patience, before he reached down and took Dean's arm, pulling him to his feet. Shaking off Cas's grip, Dean got himself into the cabin, hearing Cas's steps close behind him, before he fell onto his mattress. 

Leaning his back against the wall, Cas sighed.

The room was spinning.

"You're an _extremely_ annoying and stubborn piece of work, you know that?" Cas said.

"Takes one to know one," Dean muttered, closing his eyes.

He listened to Cas's footsteps on the cabin floorboards, moving away, then the shake of the chain of a canteen against metal before the steps came closer again. Dean opened his eyes and Cas handed him a canteen.

"There'd better be whiskey in here."

"No," Cas said. His eyes were sharp today. "Just water. Drink it."

Dean did, the slide of cold so very good down his throat.

* * *

He dozed, and when he woke up, Risa sat in the chair by the bed, boots propped up on the old army trunk Dean used. This wasn't the first time she'd been in his cabin as he slept, her face the first thing he saw when he woke up, although that hadn't happened as much lately, not as much as it used to--which was probably his fault.

"What's going on?" Dean asked, pushing himself up.

"Nothing interesting." Risa turned the page of the gun magazine she was reading. "Alan says you're supposed to stay off your leg and rest. You know, Alan? The camp medic, used to be a doctor before." She raised a sharp eyebrow.

"You forget how many wounds I stitched up myself, before?"

Risa kept her eyes down on the magazine as she turned another page, ponytail smooth, not a hair out of place.

"So you're here to guard me." He pitched his voice lower. "Anything else?"

She still didn't look up, but Dean caught the way she swallowed carefully before answering. "Nothing you're hoping for." She dropped the magazine onto the trunk and stood up. "Stay put," she said, and left him.

* * *

Chuck brought him some food, told him it would be another two days before the antibiotics were in hand. Alan came to check the wounds, put his tongue against his teeth, making a concerned clicking noise.

As darkness fell, Dean's fever rose. He slept in snatches. He got up to pee, almost fell if it hadn't been for the cane, and heard a voice mutter _idjit_ so clearly that Dean turned to scan the dark cabin. No one was there. Sixth months now since they lost Bobby.

Dean relieved himself into the bucket someone had provided for him so he wouldn't have to hobble to the outhouse, then got back into bed, shivering as he pulled the blanket over his shoulders, thin layer of sweat covering the back of his neck, making his hands clammy.

He dreamed of the Impala, chrome gleaming, a younger version of himself driving, Sam sitting shotgun as they raced past a patchwork of gold and green fields.

* * *

Daylight made him squint. But it wasn't the light that woke him, but Cas rustling around in the cabin, putting a plate of food down on the army trunk--an apple, a few slices of bread, a granola bar that might be past the expiration date on the package but he'd eat it anyway. Cas handed him a canteen, the metal cold from the liquid inside.

"Dude, why do you never bring me whiskey?" Dean said, but he drank eagerly in deep, slow gulps.

"We're out of whiskey."

Dean choked on his next swallow.

"I'm kidding," Cas said dryly.

"You'd better be."

Cas's eyes were still clear today, although he reeked of some kind of freaky incense.

* * *

The day dragged. Dean thought he might go completely batshit insane if he had to lie there and do nothing for much longer. He sat up, deciding screw it, he could get around all right. He had the strong impulse to go to where he'd hidden the Impala after the last crash. He hadn't been to see her in years, he could clear off the vines and branches that covered her, remove the rust, put her back together.

"Hey, I really think you should stay put." Sam sat in the chair, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, fingers knotted. There was a deep crease of concern between his eyes as he watched Dean.

"Bite me," Dean said.

"You could've died," Sam said, a note of sharpness creeping in. "You could've turned."

"Well, I didn't, genius." Dean tried to sit up, but the room spun.

"Your cut's infected." Sam unknotted his fingers and touched the edge of the mattress, near Dean's exposed leg. 

"It'll heal." He watched Sam, at the too-long hair falling over his eyes, the concern and impatience in the tension in his shoulders. "Oh, stop looking at me like that, Sammy, I'll be okay."

"I dunno if you will." Sam let out a long breath and pulled away. He leaned his elbows on his knees, scrubbed his hands over his face, let out another breath. 

One of the camp dogs started to bark. A jeep rolled by Dean's cabin. Someone in a nearby tent laughed.

"You're not real," Dean said.

"No, I'm not."

"You're gone. Lucifer's wearing you to the fuckin' prom."

"Dean--"

"Why?" Dean pushed himself up. "Why'd you say yes?"

"I thought it was the only way. We had a plan."

"It was a stupid plan." 

"I thought it would work. I really thought I could do it." Sam's eyes went bright with tears held back. His fingers gripped the edge of the chair arm. "But I failed. I think maybe--you should've been there."

Dean leaned back into the pillows again. "Anyway, you're gone. You're gone--and I don't know what to do, man. I don't--"

He blinked, and Sam had vanished, not even so much as a wisp of movement or color in the air to mark his presence--that for a few minutes, he'd been there, he'd been Sam again.

* * *

Risa and Chuck were arguing out on the porch. Through the window, Dean saw them, Risa gesturing angrily, Chuck holding his clipboard and making apologetic movements with his free hand. Risa grabbed him and shoved, making Chuck stumble back.

"Twenty-four hours, that's all. I promise you," Chuck said, before Risa turned away, the sound of her boots firm on the boards of the porch steps.

* * *

_Michael, I'm right here, you sonofabitch, I'm ready to say yes. Can you hear me? I'm ready. C'mon. I'm right here. I don't know what else to do. Michael._

"Dean--"

_Please please please. Michael._

"Listen to me."

_Michael._

"Dean, wake up."

A hand, heavy with warmth, closed around Dean's shoulder. Dean jolted awake, his t-shirt drenched with sweat, the wound in his leg an aching, fiery dance.

"The angels are gone, you know that." Cas spoke with a dull, resigned sadness from the chair by the bed, keeping his hand on Dean's shoulder. They hardly ever talked about this, and when they did Dean felt, as he did right then, that whatever Cas was letting him see was only the tip of some infinite sense of loss beneath. 

His gut twisted. "Yeah." He was glad, now, to be lying down, to stop struggling, to rest.

Cas's hand slid down from his shoulder and rested against the blanket near Dean's wrist. "I'd take this from you if I could. Your wound, this fever." He paused. "The rest of it. I'd bring back Sam to you."

They hardly ever talked about Sam, either. That was the first time in months Cas had said his name. The last time he had, Dean almost punched Cas for it. 

In the darkness, Cas's fingers found Dean's, closing tightly around them. All the things they'd been through together, all the different things they'd been, or were now, to each other, it always came back to this in some form or another--Cas gripping tightly and Dean holding on back.

* * *

It was raining when Chuck walked into Dean's cabin holding a bottle of pills. It rattled as Chuck came over to the side of Dean's bed to carefully place the bottle on the blanket. 

"Sorry it took so long," was all Chuck said. He hesitated, standing by the window, while Dean rotated the bottle in his fingers.

As Dean reached for his canteen, he said, "Thanks, Chuck."

"Feel better soon, boss." Chuck left, holding his clipboard the way Dean held a gun, the way Sam used to hold a knife. Somewhere in camp somebody needed cough syrup, or toilet paper, or warm socks, or a book they hadn't already read.

Dean took his first dose of antibiotics, then lay there listening to the hollow rhythm of rain on the cabin roof. The world had gone to hell; Camp Chataqua would go down too. But it would go down swinging, Dean would see to that.

 

~end


End file.
